What is Inventory Management?

You have just invented the next big thing and you’re ready to produce and sell it… now what? You may or may not have thought about accounting, realized that an excel spreadsheet isn’t going to cut it. Maybe you’ve even set up a payroll software. Maybe a hosted accounting software has crossed your mind so you can track your profits and expenses….but if you have stuff you’re going to sell there’s one more technological wonder you should invest in: Inventory Management Software.

Inventory Management: An Overview

Inventory management is a lot more than just counting your stock.
It covers everything related to the purchase, cost, price, storage, sale and care of those physical goods. Depending on what your inventory is this will vary as dramatically as the type of goods you are offering. Clothing retailers will have different needs then a perishable food product or a company that produces something that requires parts or ingredients to assemble.

WorkingPoint, regardless of the unique needs of your business, recommend that you find an inventory management solution that allows you to keep track of the essential data necessary for successful inventory management.

Why is how I manage my inventory so important?

If your business is based on making or buying a product and then storing it until a customer purchases it, your business is known as “inventory based”. If your business is small, you need to reserve your cash for a lot of uses, inventory being only one of many. Simply put, you probably can’t afford to tie up all your cash in inventory! This is known as “operating on a just-in-time inventory basis”— meaning you order products to fill immediate orders with a limited backstock and then update your inventory as it sells.

At WorkingPoint , we believe that to manage your inventory efficiently, you need to know what you have on hand so you don’t oversell or over promise your goods to your customers. You also need to know what you don’t have or are running low on so you can make or order more. Plus, you need to know the cost of your goods so you can price your products competitively and be profitable, and know the value of the inventory you have on-hand and your cost of goods sold so you can accurately determine your profit and compute your taxes.

With all the complex factors involved in running a business, streamlining and simplifying your inventory management is so important to your businesses success. This is why picking an inventory management software is so important!

We don’t like to toot our own horn too often but the inventory management software built into WorkingPoint will simplify the process by giving you an easy to use, ready built system. Plus it will back up your data and store it securely, no paper to lose or damage, and you can access your inventory information from anywhere there’s internet. When it’s time to reorder you can utilize the ability to easily sort and view data and create reports to help you figure out what to restock. For just $9 a month you can protect yourself from inventory errors that could cost you hundreds of dollars!